


They Were Kids That I Once Knew

by tinyinkstainedbird



Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-07-09 03:54:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19881190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyinkstainedbird/pseuds/tinyinkstainedbird
Summary: Between battles, they fight their own little wars. A sad story about children who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders.





	1. Kiss Like a Fight That Neither Wins

There’s nothing worse than someone who doesn’t know they should take it personally.

Like every single time he kisses Cassie. Every time he doesn’t laugh when Marco makes a joke about dying. Every time he calls Marco’s name first when they’re torn apart and bleeding.

All Marco sees is his best friend kissing a girl, and not laughing, and getting hurt, and that’s not enough. Jake wishes Marco would start taking it a little more fucking seriously.

+

There’s nothing worse than watching a person love someone who’s going to rip them to shreds.

He sees it every time Cassie kisses Jake. Every time she shakes her head and talks about the difference between right and wrong and Jake hates himself because the only thing that’s ever going to save them is the wrong thing. Every time she absolves him and forgives him even though he never asked her to.

All Jake can do is kiss her when he doesn’t get them all killed, and disappoint her again and again, and know, deep down, that he will never be as good and pure as she is. Marco wishes Jake would fucking spare himself.

+

As they get older and the war goes on, Marco starts drinking. It’s important to him to be the one they can count on for punchlines, but nothing’s funny anymore, so he drinks until he can fake it. His dad doesn’t notice, which is bullshit, considering how many years of his childhood Marco wasted on picking up that man’s pieces. They both loved Marco’s mother more than they’ve ever loved each other; he’s known that since her funeral. Marco’s a lot of things, but he isn’t stupid.

Marco knows what would happen if his dad found out she isn’t really dead. He knows he’d sell his freedom to be with her, maybe even Marco’s, too. And he knows what would happen if his dad found out what Marco had done to her. Maybe that’s why he drinks so much.

The others notice, but they all have their own fucked-up ways of coping, so they leave him to his. He’s not a kid; none of them are. Rachel’s worse, but she has Tobias. He hates her for it. He hates her for a lot of things, but being okay because of someone else is her worst offense. He can fucking fly too, you know.

It’s no secret that he loved her. It’s a secret that he doesn’t anymore. He loved her until the day she showed up at his door. It was two days after what he’d done on the mountain and Jake had pinned him to the ground and told him _it’s okay, hold on, hang in there, it’s okay, it’s okay, you’re good, you’re good, you’re good._ Rachel came to his room and she sat with him on his bed and he stopped loving her. That was the day he realized she pitied him. Because Rachel, an expert in loving someone she can never, truly have -- she had realized what the others had not:

Marco fights more than one war.

+

As they get older and the war goes on, Jake knows he’ll kill himself if it ever ends. He’s not sad about it. He deserves it. He can’t imagine his survival coming without a price, and he wonders which of them he’ll send to their deaths, and he knows when he makes that call – and he will – the others will hate him. And when he kills himself, they’ll be glad. This is what he’s learned from leading in this war.

Jake is sixteen years old.

He used to play basketball. He used to play video games. He wasn’t very good at either. He used to be a little brother. He was good at that. Now he never plays, and there are worry lines around his eyes, and he sits across the breakfast table from his older brother every morning, eating his cereal while trying and failing to picture a future wherein at least one of them doesn’t end up dead. He’s sure he’ll kill his brother when the time comes; he decided that a long time ago, even if he hasn’t told anyone. He doesn’t even remember Tom before they fell on opposite sides of the war, because he’s trained himself to forget. That’s important, if he wants to keep going.

Jake is a sixteen-year-old boy who dreams of ways to die a death that he’d deserve. The others don’t know this, but he thinks about it when he can’t sleep. (He never sleeps.)

How would he do it?

Easy. He’d morph ant, and wait for someone to step on him.

His friends call him a hero.

+

They go home after yet another night of almost dying. Jake goes with Marco because he’s fucked up and he can’t face his family like this. He’d almost gotten Tobias killed, and it’s written all over his face. He needs to go to a place where it’s okay to fall apart without anyone noticing. That’s Marco’s house.

They flutter through the window on silent wings of hollow feathers and become boys again. Barefoot, with heavy shoulders and bowed heads and shaking hands: these are the boys they have become.

“That was close,” Marco says.

“Yeah,” Jake replies. “That was way too close.”

“He’ll be okay.”

“Always is,” Jake mutters, and he knows his sarcasm isn’t lost on Marco.

“Just get some sleep,” Marco tells him. “You can beat yourself up in the morning, okay?”

“I could sleep,” he admits. “Mind if I crash in your bed?”

“As long as you don’t mind me crashing right beside you.”

“Be my guest,” Jake says, managing a smirk. “We’ve definitely done way grosser things.”

“I’ll say,” Marco snorts. He strips off his morphing shirt and peels off the shorts and barely looks at Jake as he does the same. They collapse on the bed at the same time, Jake on his back and Marco on his stomach. “I’ve never seen Rachel that upset.”

Jake’s eyes are on the ceiling. “I have,” he says quietly. “But tonight was awful.”

“Not your fault, though; you know that, right?”

Jake turns his head, his cheek resting on his pillow. He looks so much older than he really is. He smiles. “I love you, man, but if you say that one more time I’m gonna punch you in the face.”

“What the fuck for?”

“I’m sick of hearing how it’s not my fault,” Jake says. “Every time I almost get you all killed and every time I fuck you up for life, you tell me it’s not my fault. It _is_ my fucking fault, Marco. I’m _responsible_ for you.”

“Yeah, because we _asked_ you to be,” Marco scoffs. “Technically it’s _our_ fault.”

“Stop,” Jake says, no voice left in his throat besides some strangled, tearful little kid noises. “We’re never going to win.”

“One battle at a time, man.”

“Yeah,” he laughs. “Okay.”

“Look, Cassie said she was going to sleep over at Rachel’s tonight,” Marco tells him. “We all have each other. It sucks, Jake; our lives fucking suck, I know, like – I fucking _know_ that. But Rachel has Cassie and Tobias and Tobias has Rachel and Ax has Tobias and you have Cassie and I have you. We at least have that.”

“Cassie,” Jake says, a sick little smile on his face. Marco can’t get over the lines around his friend’s mouth. “I wish Cassie wasn’t a part of this.”

“You what?”

“I’d never tell her that,” he says, and looks at him sharply. “And don’t you go get drunk sometime and tell her, either.”

“I wouldn’t,” Marco tells him, affronted, and then wonders for a moment exactly what he’s told them when he’s been wasted. “But why?”

“I could’ve loved her, you know?”

“You do love her, Jake.”

“I love her like I love Ax or Tobias. I’d die for her. Without hesitation.”

Marco nods, but he knows by now as well as Jake does that dying isn’t the greatest sacrifice you can make.

“Maybe we need someone like her to keep us from going bad, I don’t know,” Jake says, folding his hands underneath his head, and Marco remembers sleepovers when they were ten. “Maybe – yeah, actually, I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“Clearly.”

“If all this hadn’t happened, she would’ve been who I picked,” Jake says, determined to get this right, because when it comes to Cassie, that’s what he tries his best to do. “But Jesus, Marco.”

“What?”

“She’s not who I fucking pick.”

“Who do you fucking pick, then?”

Jake turns his head, eyes back on the ceiling, like he’s just a kid stargazing. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he says. “I just know if we ever get out of this, she and I will never talk again.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s pure, and I’m a stain. She’s never called any shots, she’s never made the decision to put anyone’s lives in danger, she’s never given the okay to let anyone get hurt, and I fucking hate her for it.”

Marco sits up a bit, propping his chin up on his hand. “Do you hate all of us for that?”

“Sometimes.” He purses his lips. “But not like her.”

“Why her?”

“She’s a glimmer of what I could have been. Could’ve had. What will never be.”

“You’re just a kid, Jake.”

“Am I?” Jake laughed, looking at him like he already knows the answer is no.

Marco shrugs. “Maybe not,” he admits. “Will you still talk to me?”

“If you’re still alive?”

“Shut up. Yes.”

“Yes.”

“Why me?” Marco asks, and then laughs. “Because I’m not pure?”

“Because you’ll still need me and I’ll still need you. We’ll always need saving.” Jake smirks. “Cassie, though, she’ll be okay.”

“So I’m stuck with you, then,” Marco says with a teasing smile.

“Yeah, you’re stuck with me,” Jake says, but he says it with a sigh and it doesn’t sound like a promise. “Got anything to drink?”

“If you want, sure.”

“Yep.”

Marco’s bed is small, and he doesn’t have to stretch far to reach underneath and grab the bottle of whiskey that’s barely hidden there. He flips over to sit against the wall, unscrewing the lid and taking the first swig. He still winces at the taste, despite how many nights he does this.

“Ugh,” Jake mutters as he takes a drink and it burns all the way down. “I don’t know how you do this all the time.”

“I don’t know how you don’t,” Marco laughs. “What do you think you’ll do when it’s over?”

Jake shrugs. “Maybe I’ll join you at the bar.”

“If we’re old enough to get in by then.”

Jake laughs. “That’s the saddest thing you’ve ever said.”

Marco waggles his eyebrows and takes another drink.

“I don’t know, though,” Jake says with a shrug, fiddling with the label when Marco hands the bottle back to him. “I mean, what, get a job?”

“Maybe after like twenty years of therapy, sure.”

“You still wanna be on TV?”

“Fuck yeah,” Marco says. “Letterman’s gonna be out of a job. Leno, too. There won’t be a girl in Hollywood able to resist me.”

“Solid plan.”

“I’m pretty stoked for it,” Marco says, even though he doesn’t sound like he is. “You can be my Paul Shaffer.”

“Your who?”

“Letterman’s bald sidekick. Tickler of ivories. Haver of witty banter. Setter-upper of punchlines.” 

“Okay,” Jake laughs. “I thought you said I wasn’t funny.”

“No, I said you’re not fun. You still make me laugh.”

Jake smiles. “Thanks.”

“Good to see you smile, man.”

Jake looks at him as his smile vanishes, like he was caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. “It’s this shit,” he mutters, downing some more liquor. “When does it make you stop feeling stuff?”

Marco shrugs. “Sometimes it does the opposite.”

“Great.”

“You know you can talk to me if you need to,” Marco says. “Not that I don’t like drinking with you. But you have me, remember?”

“I don’t need—”

“You don’t need me.”

“No, I need you. I just mean I’m fine.”

“Bullshit,” he laughs. “You’re a teenage war vet. Your PTSD has PTSD. If you’re fine, I’m fine, and I’m not fucking fine.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

Shaking his head, Marco looks at him with mean laughter in his eyes. “No,” he says tightly, pointedly. “You know, we don’t need a leader who’s so goddamn quick to sacrifice himself.”

“I haven’t.”

“No? Look at you.”

“Give me a break.”

“Give me the whiskey back. You don’t need it.”

“Fuck off,” Jake snaps in that way he reserves only for Marco. His whole life, Marco has been the only one Jake’s ever been sure would forgive him for anything, so he talks to him however the fuck he wants. He knows he shouldn’t, knows Marco is softer than you’d think, but he can’t help it. It’s been sixteen years of taking and giving all they have to each other and they can’t stop now. It’s only going to get worse. “Why is it okay for you but not for me?”

“It just is, Jake.” He reaches out and closes his hand around the bottle, glaring at Jake when he puts up an elbow to push him away. “Grow up.”

“Did you really just tell me to grow up?” Jake laughs.

“Sure did,” he snaps, still grappling for the bottle, undeterred. Jake doesn’t scare him. They’re in his bedroom. Marco doesn’t take orders from him here.

For a moment, they’re a couple of children fighting over a toy, and they don’t care about their limbs or the pain or hurting each other, just winning. They know each other’s hands and shoulders and curses and strengths and weaknesses, and as they fight, that’s all they think about. Jake’s arms. Marco’s panting. Knees knocking. Hearts pounding.

And then Jake starts to cry and Marco isn’t the type to let that stop him from winning, so he climbs on top of him and sits, locking his legs down with his weight and pinning his arms at his side with his knees. It’s only when Jake stops trying that Marco goes easy on him. He leans down, raking his fingers through Jake’s hair, and presses their foreheads together.

“Stop,” he whispers. “Stop.”

Jake shakes his head, crying helplessly.

“Stop,” he says again. “You’ve had a bad night. You’ve had a lot of bad nights. Way goddamn more than you deserve, but you’re okay right now. I’m not moving until you tell me to, okay?”

Jake nods.

“You want me to move?”

He shakes his head.

“Okay. I’m not going anywhere. Okay?”

Jake nods again. Right now, the most important thing in the world to him, the only thing he wants to think about and feel, is Marco’s weight. This is all he wants. He’s heavy but not like the rest of the fucking world. It’s just enough. He can still breathe.

“Is it tonight, or just all of it?” Marco asks softly.

Jake can’t answer, but he doesn’t have to. Marco gives him time to get back in control.

Jake’s mind is racing through everything. Tonight. How connected they all are, dominoes that will destroy each other if he knocks one down. Cassie, and how she’s already broken his heart and how it’s only a matter of time before he breaks hers too. He knows. He can’t be with her, even if they win. He’ll kiss her when they don’t die, but in the end, he’ll walk away.

Jake can’t be with a girl so soft and fragile and sweet. Once upon a time, he could have grown into a man like his father. But he won’t. He’s grown into something else. When Jake grows up, he’ll need to spend his nights and passions and strength on someone who can fucking take it.

And that’s not Cassie.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m good.”

Marco slides off of him, slides the bottle from his grip, slides down onto his side, and slides an arm over him. Squeezes tight. Holds him. Jake, the broken war he fights for every day, safe in his arms for now.

Back-to-chest, they close their eyes. They won’t sleep, but they’ll try.

“Hey,” Marco whispers.

“Yeah?”

“What do you want to do when this is all over?”

“You already asked me that.”

“No, I asked what you’re _going_ to do,” Marco says. “What do you _want_ to do?”

“Get through it,” Jake whispers back. “Get over it.”

“Can I help?”

“Will you?”

Marco shakes his head. “I’ll do my best, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this seems familiar, it's because I originally posted it in 2014. I took it down for personal reasons, but I decided to repost it after hearing from a few readers who remembered it. To those of you who reached out, thank you. Theirs is the saddest story I know, but the dearest one to my heart, and I'm so grateful that you remembered the words I wrote about it. I hope you still like it.


	2. You're a King and I'm a Lionheart

Jake smiles. Even Rachel’s scowl can light up a room.

He watches her glare at their grandmother’s back as she walks away after getting the final word. Rachel’s expression is petulant, but he knows it’s only because she turns hurt into anger.

She looks the part, in her baby blue dress and kitten heels, and she’s prettier than the bride. He wonders if that’s why everyone’s so hard on her, or if it’s just because it’s so obvious that she doesn’t belong here with them.

Jake excuses himself from his uncle Pete, who’s waxing poetic about his glaucoma, and sidles up beside his cousin. She rolls her eyes as he approaches, but looks relieved to see him.

“You look like you’re having a blast,” he tells her dryly, snagging a macaron from the refreshments table and popping it in his mouth.

“Really?” Rachel replies. “I’ll try to tone it down.”

“Yeah, a couple notches at least.” He nods at the glass in her hand, filled to the brim with burgundy liquid. “Is that wine?”

“What, I can save the world but I’m not old enough to have a glass of wine at our cousin’s wedding?”

Jake smiles. “We haven’t saved the world,” he chuckles. “Where can I get some?”

“Follow me, leader,” she grins, and he does. He always has. 

They weave through patches of relatives, some chatting politely, others cackling drunkenly, all so goddamn normal. He wonders if any of them know about the price on his head. If they’ve ever seen Rachel in action. He hopes not.

“Move it, pipsqueaks,” Rachel tells her little sisters. They stick their tongues out at her but abandon their spots at the table that’s been assigned to Rachel’s family. She messes up Jordan’s hair and hugs Sara to her side before they scamper off, and Jake smiles. Rachel’s sisters worship her, and she adores them. At least that much hasn’t changed. 

Jake and Rachel sit down, and she pours him a glass before she tops off her own. “Cheers, darlin.”

“Your dad doesn’t care?”

“A benefit of being a casualty of divorce,” she says with a wry smirk. “They pick their battles.”

“Unlike you,” he says, and it’s meant to sound teasing, but they both know it’s true.

He takes a sip of his wine. Sour. Not terrible, but not his cup of tea. He knows himself well enough to know that if someday he turns to substance abuse to cope like Marco has, he’ll go with something that burns. Like Marco has. But this is fine for now, for this pretty wedding where all they are is just a couple of cousins, too old to sit at the kiddie table and too young to be taken seriously. “Wedding was nice.”

Rachel snorts. “Not sure what she was thinking with those bridesmaid dresses. Seafoam and taffeta? Get real.”

Jake laughs. “Those were just crocodile tears you were wiping away during the ceremony, then?”

“No, those were real tears,” she replies. “Real tears for crimes against fashion.”

“And true love.”

“Shut up,” she grumbles. “Their vows were nice.”

“You cried through the whole thing, Rachel.”

“Not my fault. If her dad could’ve just kept his shit together when he walked her down the aisle, I would have been fine. Bored, even.”

“Hmm, and what about every other wedding we’ve been to that you’ve bawled your way through?”

She glares at him. “You know me too well. It’s unfair.”

“Hard to keep up the warrior princess act with that mushy old heart of yours, huh?”

“Drink your wine.”

“You don’t have to do that around me, you know. We’re family.”

“Good grief.”

He hesitates, and then a smile cracks over his face. “I love how you can be such a badass and yet still say good grief.”

“I take it back. Put down your wine.”

He takes a defiant, dainty sip. “So, why didn’t you invite Tobias?”

Rachel’s glare becomes lethal. Jake’s one of the few people who can stand up to it. “Why didn’t you invite Cassie? Not like she has to demorph in a closet every two hours.”

Jake recoils just slightly. Rachel is lionhearted. She can do anything. She’s the first to fight and the last to back down. She’s carried her friends to safety with blood in her eyes and she’s ripped throats out with her teeth and gone back for more. If you called her a war criminal, she’d laugh, but she wouldn’t deny it. She isn’t cruel, but she’s brave, and she’s vicious. She’s an assassin. She does their dirty work.

But the one thing she can’t do is have the boy she loves.

Only an asshole would throw that in her face.

“Sorry,” Jake tells her. “I didn’t invite Cassie because I wanted to spend time with my family. Plus I don’t even know if we’re, like… you know. A thing.”

“Oh fuck off,” Rachel scoffs. “You’re a thing.”

Jake steals a glance. She puts on a good act, but he knows when she wants someone to be kind. People so seldom are to her, including him. He makes his voice soft and does his best. “I know you wish Tobias could be here. I know you’d bring him with you anywhere you went if you could. I’m sorry. I’m a shithead.”

Only Rachel can roll her eyes and make it look like forgiveness. “Whatever. You’re the only shithead here that I can stand.”

“Was Grandma B giving you some sass before I came over?”

A growl stirs in the back of her throat. You can take the girl out of the grizzly... “It makes me so mad,” she grumbles.

“What does? Grandma?”

“Yeah,” she snaps. “Telling me to smile more. Lecturing me on how I’ll never find a good man without a smile. How a girl like me won’t have to work a day in my life, but not if I don’t start acting like one. I don’t need to find a man, Jake.”

“No, you don’t.”

“But it’s not just her,” she says. “It’s everyone here. Every aunt and uncle and second-cousin twice removed just tells me how pretty I am. They don’t ask about school or gymnastics. Everyone thinks they can just come up to me and talk about how I look, like that's the only good thing about me.”

Jake nods. He knows. He’s had to tell enough guys at school to knock it off when they talk about her in the locker room. He knows what people say about his cousin.

“I know what I look like,” Rachel says, not arrogant, not modest, merely indifferent. “I don’t get why it’s so important.”

He shrugs. “To some people it is, I guess.”

“But it’s not all that I am.”

“No,” he chuckles, as if he’s never heard anything more absurd. “Not even close.”

“If people knew about the things I’ve done, they wouldn’t think I’m so pretty.”

“Probably not,” he agrees. “If they knew the things I’ve asked you to do, they wouldn’t like me much, either.”

“You do what you have to do.”

“Maybe.” He casts a look around the room at their loved ones celebrating a beautiful day. No one’s paying attention to them. “Everyone’s asking me about basketball and school and girls and what I want to do when I grow up and I’m just like—”

“You already are.”

“I already am.”

“Too much.”

“Enough.”

Rachel smiles gently at him. Gentleness doesn’t come easily for her, especially around her cousin, who has sent her to war and used her in ways that keep them both up at night. She loves him, she loves him to death, she’s killed for him and she would die for him, but go easy on him? Not a chance.

Sometimes, though, she looks over at him and thinks about how old he is. Jake is the brother she never had, the only one in the group big enough to look her in the eye. He’s the general of their doomed little army, but he used to be a boy who cried over skinned knees and turned around and told her to suck it up whenever she fell. He was born three weeks before her and grew up just two blocks down the street and she’s known him his whole life and somewhere along the way he became sly and calculating and old. The silent leader of the resistance with his basketball shoes untied and his heart hollow. Sixteen going on dead.

So sometimes she looks at him and she can smile gently.

“You look nice,” she tells him.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“No, I mean, you look nice.” She locks eyes with him, bright blue blazing into dark brown, and has a way of not letting him look away. “You look like a nice kid. You look like you’re kind and strong and good.”

“What if that’s not who I am, though?”

“But you are. And a million other things.” She shrugs. “You’re also a shithead. And stubborn, and bossy, and no fun, ever, and--”

“Okay, I get it.”

“I’m just saying,” Rachel continues. “You mean more to the world than it’ll ever know.”

He studies her face. Rachel, the terrible beauty who can turn shopping malls and balancing beams and battlefields all into a catwalk. She can walk through a hurricane without getting wet while using her body as a shield for the others. She’s so used to compliments she doesn’t offer any because she thinks they’re selfish. He would die for her too, but unfortunately will probably only get her killed. He wishes she’d stop, but he just says “thank you” instead.

She laughs. “Don’t tell Marco I was nice.”

“You called me a shithead.”

“Good. Remember that.”

He laughs back. “We should hang out more.”

“Yeah, because we don’t hang out enough as it is?”

“I mean like this. Like family.”

Rachel raises an eyebrow, and then scans the crowd for Jake’s brother. He’s standing against the wall by himself, a blank, disgusted look on his face, and she tries not to think about the boy screaming inside. She knows Jake thinks about it every time he looks at Tom, just like she knows she’s the closest thing he has to a sibling now. So she shrugs and says, “Let’s do it.”

“Cool, they’re playing ET in the park next Saturday; you could bring Tobias--”

“Come on.” She knocks her drink back and stands up, offering him a brazen hand. “On your feet.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re hanging out.”

“I know. In chairs.”

“Remember when I told you you’re no fun?”

“Ever,” Jake confirms.

“Well, stop it,” Rachel says. “Let’s mop the floor with our relatives.”

“You’re literally insane.”

She throws her head back and laughs, like that’s a far better compliment than beautiful. “And?”

“If you think for one second that I’m going to dance, in front of people, you are one million percent wrong as fuck.”

“This is my song!”

“This is the Village People.”

“This is my song!”

“I’d rather die.”

“You will!” she crows happily. “So will I! So let’s dance!”

“Not a fucking chance.”

Rachel towers over him in her party dress, hands on her hips. “Jake, did you ever think maybe this is the last wedding we’ll ever go to?”

“Don’t do that.”

“Oh, give me a break,” she says. “We all know we could die tomorrow. That’s what makes us brave. You, me, Tobias, Cassie, Marco, Ax, all of us. Just because we’re brave doesn’t mean we can’t be sad. Do you know what the average life expectancy is for a red-tailed hawk?”

“Jesus, Rachel--”

“I do,” she says, and he sees it all over her face: just because she’s brave doesn’t mean she isn’t sad. “And that’s assuming any of us die of old age.”

“Maybe we will.”

“Maybe we will,” she allows. “Either way, I know my dad will never walk me down the aisle and I’m not going to dance with him and I know Cassie will never catch the bouquet. And that’s okay. That’s not the life I was meant to have. But could you just stop being a big honking goober for one night and dance with me?”

Heart breaking, hands shaking, Jake nods. “Yeah.”

Her eyes flash with victory and delight. “Bottoms up.”

Jake swallows the rest of his wine in one painful gulp and sets the glass on the table, taking a moment to clear his head from the wave of dizziness that washes over him. He stands and takes another moment to look at her family’s table, with each of their names written in cursive on tiny little place cards so they’d all know where to sit. Her youngest sister Sara’s tiny red jacket sits strewn on her chair, and he recognizes it as a hand-me-down. It had been Rachel’s once, when they were kids, and he suddenly remembers Tom walking them to school on their first day of kindergarten. God, he hopes all of her things don’t come to belong to her little sisters someday. He will hate himself for as long as he lives if he takes her away from them.

He slings an arm over her shoulder, even though she’s taller than him in her heels, and he leads her to the dance floor. They join their aunts and uncles and second-cousins twice removed, and they dance.

Somehow, shaping her arms into letters while she warbles the stupid words to the YMCA with a massive grin on her face, she has a spotlight on her. Everyone looks at her. No one smiles, but they watch. As if she cares. She just hipchecks him and yells at him to do the goddamn letters, and cackles when he makes the C backwards. He finds himself laughing, and for a moment, he forgets about his stolen brother and he forgets about the war and the things they’ve done and are going to do.

They ambush her little sisters, pulling them into their circle. Hand-in-hand, Rachel and Jordan swing each other around like the bratty sisters they are, while Jake gently takes Sara’s hand and twirls her. He lets her do all the dancing while he awkwardly bobs his head to the beat. He catches Rachel’s eye and she brays with laughter and returns to him.

“What are you, a birch tree? That’s not dancing!”

“This is how I dance.”

She kicks off her heels. “Stand back, Sara. Jake needs an intervention.”

The next song starts -- fucking Mony Mony by goddamn Billy Idol -- and she grabs his hand and swings him around, ignoring his shrill but stern shouts of protest. She teaches him the real lyrics _(“here she comes now singing mony mony - hey motherfucker get fucked get laid”)_ and soon they’re both staggering and bent in half with laughter but they never stop dancing. For the first time in years, Jake forgets how old he is, and Rachel forgets how vicious she is. She’s graceful and he’s horrible but this corner of the dance floor is all theirs and tonight they are a different kind of force to be reckoned with.

And for the first time in a long time, they aren’t just a general and his lieutenant. He isn’t a dictator and she isn’t his secret weapon. They aren’t killers. He isn’t a little boy with skinned knees telling his friends to suck it up. She isn’t a little girl who is too big for the gymnastics she used to love and too little to win the war she has grown to love even more. They are children dancing.

“Gross,” Rachel says as the next song begins. “Your Song” by Elton John. “Unhand me.”

“Gladly.” He steps back, happy to retreat to the sidelines where no one can watch him dance like a tree, and then he spots a familiar face with bright blue eyes. “Come with me.”

Jake leads Rachel to her father.

She beams up at him, and Jake smiles because when it comes to her dad, there’s nothing about her that isn’t gentle and kind. She isn’t a warrior; she is a daughter, and her father is so proud of her. He’s the one who taught her she was tougher than all the boys, the one who instilled a love of winning and recklessness and never-ending loyalty in her. The one person who would be unsurprised instead of horrified if he knew just how strong she has been.

“Go ask your mother to dance,” Rachel tells Jake before her lets her dad sweep her into a sweet two-step. Her dress curls around her legs as he spins her in a circle. Jake leaves them alone.

He finds his mom and he doesn’t ask her to dance, but he sits beside her and lets her rest her head on his shoulder. “Good night?” he asks. 

“It’s been beautiful,” she replies, wine in her voice. “Having fun with your cousins?”

“Yeah.”

“Rachel’s such a good kid,” she says. “And she’s so beautiful.”

He nods.

“Why don’t you go hang out with your brother?” she asks. “He looks lonely.”

“Because I’m hanging out with you,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady.

She sits up straight and looks at her youngest. She straightens his tie and touches his face. “I love you, you little sweetheart,” she says, and he smiles back because he believes her.

“I love you too, Mom,” he says, and swears to her silently that someday he will save her lonely son. They’ll be a family again, no matter what he has to do to get him back.

And as he makes promises to his mother in his head, he watches Rachel look up at her dad like she’s six years old and he looks back down at her just the same, and they share matching laughing smiles as they sway to words like _how wonderful life is while you’re in the world._

He hopes his uncle knows to remember this dance and this song and this night and his daughter the way she is right now. 

Even if it means Jake will never be forgiven.


	3. tell me what your hands were made for

_ “On a sweet, sunny day, she made my heart ache.” _

**-The Illusion**

Tobias will never know what would have become of Rachel if the war hadn’t come to her, and he doesn’t want to. He smiles sometimes, when he remembers her in the construction site the night their lives changed: how she’d been there because she was brave, and how he’d been there because he wasn’t.

The others think she’s broken. Dangerous. Shards of glass on the floor, ready to hurt anyone who tries to help her up. He doesn’t think so.

She glitters, yes. She’s sharp. She can be dangerous, and she might hurt you. But she’s good, and that’s how she winds up on the ground.

Rachel has been taught that she’s mean and Tobias has been taught that he’s weak. But he has bones that wind can break, and her hands don’t hurt him. There’s an open window waiting for him every night and when he flies through it, she rolls her eyes and says  _ took you long enough. _

And he loves her so much.

Perfect little love, they are meant to be, and they never will.

+

They can fly but they can’t dance and sometimes Rachel thinks she would trade the skies for a night with him. She’s brave enough to ask him to stay with her, and he’s only brave enough to stay in the fight. This is their battle, and every word they say means I love you.

But tonight she’s not asking and tonight he’s not going anywhere. Tobias knows an overhang where they can watch the Fourth of July fireworks, and no one will be able to see the two of them, which will come in handy when he has to return to hawk. She told her mom she’s sleeping over at Cassie’s, so they have all night. Tonight, there will be no two-hour limit.

It’s never occurred to either of them how sad it is that, despite all they’ve been through, they’re still too young to drive. They’re a couple of kids in love; who cares how old their hearts are? Hand in hand, they run through the tall grass, a blanket tucked under her arm and a bag full of his favourite candy from childhood in his hand. They laugh as they run, like they could take flight at any moment, if it weren’t for the weight of their smiles.

Rachel could run forever. She’s boundless, with beautiful and terrible creatures running through her veins. Her legs are long and strong and lean like a colt and her arms could be wings and her grin is a predator and her eyes are joy. She’s every animal that’s taught her to swim and fly and kill and crawl but it’s the girl inside her that is the rarest wild thing of all. The deadliest, the sweetest, the strongest and most beautiful. She belongs behind bars; she belongs on a pedestal; she belongs in the sky.

But she’s here, instead, next to him.

“Come on!” she laughs. “Were you a snail in another life?”

“No, but I used to get stuffed in lockers a lot,” he laughs back, out of breath. “I’ve never been very good at running.”

She graces him with a glance, danger in her eyes, and continues pulling him forward. She’ll always stick beside him, but she’ll never let him stop. “You know you just have to give me their names and I’ll take care of them.”

“I do know,” he replies, smirking. “But that’s not my life anymore. This is.”

She grins. “Isn’t it awesome?” 

Tobias doesn’t know how to answer that. In some ways, yes, it is. But there are other ways -- ways he worries will end in him losing her, and no, that’s horrible. This right now, though, with her, is wonderful, and there’s enough boy left in him to know that. “Are you sure you don’t want to just go flying? I’m way better at that.”

“I know you are,” she smiles. “You always have been.” She laughs, because she’s happy. “But sometimes I just want you down on the ground with me.”

It takes Tobias a moment to smile -- all this time spent in a body with a mouth designed only for ripping and tearing has made him forget to show emotion -- but when he does, it comes with a kiss. Tobias has all the freedom the sky can offer him, but he’s still not used this.

Not once had he ever thought he’d wind up here. Nobody was supposed to give a shit about him. From the moment his mother abandoned him, he understood that he was born to be ignored, to be stepped on and beaten and forgotten and used. He was meant to be stuffed in lockers, he was meant to have his face slammed into bathroom floors, he was meant to be pushed around until he cracked right open. He was meant to come home from a day of torment at school to find his uncle drunk and asleep on his bedroom floor, waiting for him. That was his life. 

And then Rachel.

Little boys from broken homes don’t dream of loving someone with an entire galaxy in their laugh. He never dreamt of a brave little soldier girl who would stand at his side and fight for his life. He was not born to be loved by a blood-soaked white rose with thorns only meant for killing his enemies.

But Rachel.

Her hands are on his face and she has taken lives with them but he could forgive her for anything. She makes him forget where he came from, what people did to him, that he was once upon a time unwanted and abused.

And Tobias.

His gentleness makes her forget what she’s done with her hands. He makes her forget that she was born to kill. That she enjoys it. He is the one person in this entire universe who makes her care if she’s beautiful, and loving him is the only thing that makes her scared of dying.

They kiss in the dirt, surrounded by tall grass and cheered on by the chirps of crickets, lit by stars and fireflies. He’s pinned to the ground with her knees around his hips and she’s stronger than him, and that makes him feel strong. Maybe that’s why she loves him so much: he’s the only one who’s ever wanted her to be as strong as she really is.

And he can take her touch. He won’t tell anyone that she’s actually sweet. That she’s soft and gentle and full of tiny sighs and light fingertips. She nuzzles. She laughs. She whispers  _ sorry _ when her hair falls and brushes his face and then  _ thank you _ when he reaches up to gather the shock of golden hair in his hand and place it delicately over her shoulder. She kisses his nose and laughs and dodges him when he tries to do the same and then laughs harder when he sits up and tackles her to the ground. That’s how he knows she loves him: she lets him win.

But it’s also because she has dirt in her hair and under her nails and on her designer jeans and she’s a mess and she doesn’t care and that means everything. A good fight isn’t the only thing that can put Rachel on the ground and cover her with dirt. It's him. Only gentle little Tobias can make her heart crumble.

Limbs and lips entangled, there is no such thing as war, and they’re not fighting or flying, but they’re happy anyway. It’s a game, not the end of the world, and they’re saving no one but each other.

“So much for the fireworks,” he says.

“I beg to differ,” she smiles. “We’ll probably still be able to hear them at least.”

Tobias smiles back. “Fine by me,” he says. He would’ve just been looking at her instead of the fireworks all night anyway. He shifts so he’s lying beside her, propping himself up on his elbow. “I feel better.”

She does the same so she can look him in the eye. “Do you?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“What Taylor did to you--”

“I remember,” he chuckles softly. “We’ve talked about it.”

“I still wish you’d let me kill her,” she growls. “She doesn’t deserve to live.”

“She probably doesn’t,” Tobias admits. “But I know for a fact that you deserve to live without that on your conscience.”

“I already have all the blood in the world on my hands,” she says. "She wouldn't have made a difference.”

“Rachel,” he says. “Give me your hands.”

“What for?”

“Just give me your hands.”

They both sit up, sitting cross-legged, her knees overlapping his, and she offers him her hands, palms to the sky. She gives him a questioning smirk but lets him take them in his, and he runs his thumb over her heartline and traces his fingers over the tiny bones that make up her hands. They’re bigger than his, and she could crush him if she wanted to, but she just lets them rest.

“These hands, right here?” He slides his fingers between hers and holds on tight. “These hands wouldn’t hurt a fly. They could, but they don’t. They protect your friends, they save the world, but they never hurt anything that doesn’t need to be hurt.”

“Oh, quit it.”

“Other hands have hurt me but these ones haven't,” Tobias tells her, voice straining. “You could rip my heart out, but you would never do that."

"No, I never would."

"You keep it safe."

"I always will."

"So don’t sit there and talk about the blood on your hands and act like it doesn’t matter," he says. "What you’ve done matters, Rachel. You’ve been protecting me since we cut through the construction site, no questions asked. If I can protect you from this one thing, just let me do it and don’t ask questions, okay?”

She looks at him, this mousy little kid whose eyes have learned to be fierce. The predator in her needs the predator in him, almost as much as she needs the gentleness he can’t get rid of. “Okay,” she says. She should tell him she loves him, but even Rachel gets scared sometimes.

“So anyway,” he says. “What I meant was thanks for tonight. I feel better. That’s all.”

Rachel smiles and makes his heart flutter. “You brave little thing,” she says, and goes back in for the kiss.

The difference between Rachel and Tobias and everyone else is that war hasn’t ripped away pieces of who they are and torn them into unrecognizable shreds. The war introduced them to each other and to themselves. No, Tobias doesn’t know what would have become of Rachel if the war hadn’t come to her, but he knows what would have become of him. And he doesn’t like to think about that.

They are thankful for the war.

“Let’s eat some candy,” she says, flashing him that grin of hers. She tears into the bag and pulls out a box of Reese’s Pieces while he unrolls the checkered blanket and hangs it over her shoulders. She breaks into the box and pops a handful of chocolates into her mouth. “Get over here, bird boy,” she says, grabbing one end of the blanket and opening her arm, like a wing. He nestles in beside her. “How long do you have?”

He checks the watch she gave him. “Forty-two minutes.”

“Plenty of time,” she smiles.

He smiles back and kisses her, even though he knows she’s probably wrong.

The difference between Rachel and Tobias is that she doesn’t think she’ll ever break his heart.


	4. keep feeling its breaking bones

Tobias saw her crying from a mile away, but he waits until he’s landed in the rafters to ask what’s wrong.

Cassie’s too sad to be startled. She looks up from her spot on the hay bales and wipes her tear-streaked face with her sleeve. “Hey, Tobias.”

<What happened?> he asks. <Is everyone okay?>

She waves a hand, and he sees her take a couple of quick breaths to calm herself down, even though he knows she doesn’t want him to. “Don’t worry. Everyone’s fine.”

<Should I get someone?> he asks. <Jake?>

“No,” she promises, voice gentle, but isn’t one for smiling when she doesn’t mean it. “I’m okay.”

<Right. Just bawling your guts out in the barn. As one does. Cool.>

“Did you need something?” she asks. “Did someone call a meeting?”

<Nope. Just saw you were sad.>

“Damn your hawk eyes.”

<Look, I could get Rachel. She’s at the mall.> He flutters down to the top of the hay bales. <If there’s anything that can tear her away from shopping till she drops, it’s you having a bad day.>

“If you interrupt her while she’s hunting for sales and she got here and found out why I’m upset, she’d kill us both.”

<Then tell me. Or just tell me you’re all right. I’ve got hunting of my own to do.>

Cassie looks up at him, studies his curved beak and talons and imagines him swooping down on a cowering family of rabbits. She knows he eats them alive. She knows he has a right to survive, that his life is harder than hers, that he’s a bird of prey killing to live and not a boy killing for fun. She knows he wouldn’t understand.

“Thanks, Tobias. I’m all right, though.”

<I’m almost convinced. See you around,> he says, but stops before he spreads his wings. <By the way, I saw an idiot crow that’s gotten stuck in one of those six-pack plastic ring things. Can’t fly. Hanging around the McDonald’s, scavenging with the seagulls. Idiot. Thought you’d want to know.>

Cassie smiles. Tobias talks about other birds like they’re kids at his school. Jays are punks, crows are bullies, goldens are the devil, seagulls are slackers with munchies, bald eagles are royalty (and he's in love with the homecoming queen). He has a healthy amount of respect for anyone bigger than him, but unlike the Tobias he had been when he was human, he doesn’t let anyone push him around. And he doesn’t pity anyone smaller than him and he doesn’t prey on them, but he looks out for them just the same. Tobias the boy is still in there somewhere.

Maybe he would understand, after all.

“Thank you,” she says. “I’ll tell my dad.”

<You do that,> he replies, and she hears the whisper of his feathers in the dusty air. <Bye, Cassie.>

“Maybe -- would you --” She stops, and so does he. “Could you check on another nest for me?”

He turns his sharp gaze back on her, folding his wings back down at his sides. <What kind?>

“Sparrows.”

<What’s wrong with them?>

Cassie tries to imagine what her dad would say. He would somehow find a way to balance clinical with compassionate. He would find a way to make death sound like poetry that can’t be stopped. He would say it right and be kind and he wouldn’t cry.

But Cassie isn’t her father. “I killed their mother.”

Tobias stares at her. She’s glad he can’t show pity or horror. She deserves his piercing glare. <You what?>

A fresh batch of warm tears falls down her face. “I think her wing must have been broken,” she tells him, every syllable soaked with guilt. “She was on the ground. I didn’t see her.”

<Oh.>

Tobias says no more than that, but he doesn’t need to. Tobias feels soft things harder than most.

“I went for a run,” she continues, because she needs to. “I don’t know why. I just thought it would feel good to run for a little while out in the field.”

<And did it?>

“Not really,” she admits, and sounds disgusted with herself for being sad. “We’ve been through so much lately and it’s all building up so bad, you know? I’m not dealing with it very well, and Rachel’s off the deep end and Jake’s breaking and I don’t know who to talk to--”

<You’re talking to me.>

“You’re a bird, Tobias,” she cries, and her breath catches in her chest. She covers her face with her hands and she weeps like only Cassie can: earthy and grand and sweeping.

He lets her cry, because she deserves that, too. Sometimes her pain hurts others, and Tobias has been hurt enough.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him weakly. “I don’t mean anything by that. I just mean you’re the last person who should have to listen to me complain.”

<It’s fine,> he says, his voice in her head clipped and cool. <So you went for run.>

“Yes.”

<Horse morph?>

“Yep.”

<Where does the bird come in?>

“After I demorphed and was walking back to the barn.” She sucks in a shuddery breath. “If I had taken two seconds off from thinking about myself, maybe I would have seen her.”

<You stepped on her.>

“I stepped on a bird,” she whispers.

<You would’ve been barefoot.>

Bottom lip trembling, she nods.

<You’re right,> he says. <If you’d interrupted Rachel’s shopping trip for this, she would have killed you.>

“I know, it’s stupid.”

<Not to me.>

She looks up at him with eyes so sad and relieved that he spreads his wings and swoops down to sit beside her. “Thanks,” she manages.

<If it makes you feel better, she wouldn’t have lasted long anyway,> he tells her, in that gentle, harsh way he has. <A broken wing is a death sentence. You know that.>

“My dad could’ve helped her.”

<Your dad can’t save every little broken thing,> Tobias says. <And neither can you.>

Her expression crumples and her shoulders sink, like she’s been punched in the stomach.

<That’s what this is about, isn’t it?> he asks.

“I try so hard,” she whimpers.

<Who on earth said you don’t?> he laughs softly, affectionate and weary. <Remember, I keep an eye on you guys. I know how hard you try, Cassie. I see it every day.>

“You see me killing.”

<If that’s all you think you do, you’re an idiot,> he says, voice sharpening. <Look, this war has taken its toll on all of us. For starters, I eat mice now.>

She doesn’t laugh. He didn’t want her to.

<What you said about Jake and Rachel is true,> he admits, like he wishes he didn’t have to. <But you can’t blame them, and you can’t take it personally.>

“It’s hard not to, when I love both of them so much.”

<It’s obvious that you do, and I bet you buttons to donuts that they thank their lucky stars for that.>

“Buttons to donuts?”

<Yeah, buttons to donuts. Like it’s a sure thing.>

“That’s not a thing people say, Tobias,” she laughs with a teasing smile. “But it’s cute.”

<Well, maybe it’s a thing birds say,> he says indignantly. <Anyway. You can’t save him and you can’t save her.>

“I can try.”

<Absolutely. And you do,> he says. <And maybe sometimes you’ll slip up and take a step you shouldn’t have. But you do a good job. Nobody cares like you do. None of us. We need you for a lot of reasons, but mostly for how much you feel. Don’t change that, even if it hurts like hell.>

“Couldn’t if I wanted to,” she says, and chuckles. “I’ve tried.”

He thinks for a moment before he promises, <We’ll get them back after the war, Cassie.>

“I’m glad you think so,” she says, and forces a tight-lipped smile. She reaches out a hand, and doesn’t mind when he flinches back before she strokes his crest of feathers. “Thanks, little friend.”

When he was just a boy, Cassie hadn’t seen him. She was the only one.

Jake had spotted him at a time when Tobias didn’t want anyone to look at him, with bullies’ hands all over him, pushing him down, holding his head in the swirling water as they flushed over and over and laughed at his pleas for them to stop. Jake looked at him and he saved him, easy as that, because that’s what Jake does. Even before anyone’s life depended on him. Before it came with a price.

Marco had noticed him when he started trailing after Jake like a lost puppy, and he noticed him enough to at least be mean to him, which Tobias learned not to take personally. He sees a lot. He sees what Marco loves, and Marco is a boy used to having things taken away from him. In his own way, Marco is right to be mean to him. 

And that night in the construction site, only Rachel was brave enough to look at him and say  _ I’ve seen you around _ and not make it sound like a bad thing. She didn’t look at people like they needed to be saved, or like they were going to take something from her. Even back then, she’d looked for the fight in others.

But that night, Cassie had looked at him like she’d never seen him before. Cassie, the girl who liked animals more than she liked most people, was the only one who had never noticed he was alive. Tobias tries not to wonder if she cares about him now because he has a brittle body that can be caged. She does love broken things.

Thank God. They are a pack of mangled creatures, and they need to be loved. There may come a day when it all comes out and Jake’s own mother can’t even look at him. When Rachel’s sisters stop wanting to be like her, and Marco’s father wishes his son had died instead of his wife. Ax’s people have already abandoned him, and Tobias never had anyone to begin with, but they’ve fought just as hard and bled just as much as the rest, and at the end of the day, if it all goes wrong, they will need to at least have Cassie on their side.

It’s important to know Cassie cries over dead birds and doesn’t let Rachel see. Because it’s true. It’s true that birds are easy to kill. And it’s true that Rachel’s going off the deep end. He feels better about his tiny bones, knowing that if they snap, he’ll be leaving her with Cassie.

<No problem,> he says. <Where’s that nest?>

“I’ll take you,” she says, wiping the last of her tears away with open palms, and then wipes her hands on her overalls. Of all of them, it is easiest to still see the child in Cassie. “Ugh. Sorry. Awkward. I know you’re used to Rachel. She doesn’t fall to pieces over little things.”

<One time a ladybug pooped on her pants. I’ve never seen someone so utterly betrayed in all my life.>

Cassie laughs. “That’s our girl.”

<Sure is,> he says, unable to keep the pride out of his voice. <Seriously, though. You’re in here crying over a bird. Don’t you think that says a lot about you?>

She looks at him, her jaw squared.

<Well, it says a lot to me, anyway,> he tells her. <Let’s go find the littluns.>

“Littluns?” she wonders. “You been reading Lord of the Flies in your spare time?”

<There’s this woman who works in an office downtown,> he replies. <She reads it on her lunch breaks. She reads a little faster than I do but I mostly keep up okay.>

“Damn your hawk eyes,” Cassie smiles.

<I like it. The book. I don’t know what happens yet, but I like it.>

“I’m not surprised,” she says. “The old Tobias is a lot like Simon.”

<He’s my favourite character,> he says.

"Mine too."

<I hope he makes it out okay.>

Cassie doesn’t know how to tell him that Simon won’t make it out okay. That his death symbolizes the end of innocence, the loss of hope, the horror of humanity. She hopes when he gets to that part that he'll know the Tobias he is now  _ will _ make it out of this okay. He has wings. And he has them. 

“Let me know when you’re finished reading,” Cassie says. “We can talk about it.”

<I’d like that.>

“All right,” she sighs, shuffling down to the edge of the hay bale and hopping off, moving like her body feels heavier than she’s used to. “This way.”

Cassie shows Tobias where the nest is and he circles around and she only wonders for a moment if he’s lying to her when he tells her the baby sparrows are almost old enough to leave the nest on their own. They’ll be okay without their mom, he promises. She decides to believe him. He knows a thing or two about how to be okay without a mother.

<I told Rachel I’d meet her after she was done so we could go flying,> Tobias says, curling his talons around a tree branch and glaring down at her. <You okay if I take off?>

“I’m okay,” she says, and she means it when she smiles at him. “Have fun. Keep that girl out of trouble, will you?”

<Yeah right,> he laughs. <That girl  _ is _ trouble.>

“The best kind,” she agrees. “Bye, Tobias. Thank you.”

<No worries. Don’t forget the crow.>

“I won’t,” she promises. She gives him a little nod and a tiny wave and shields her eyes from the sun as he takes to the sky. Her friend is made of pretty feathers and skinny bones and he’s one of the strongest, bravest things she’s ever seen. It makes her happy to watch him fly.

Cassie walks back to the barn, feeling the breaking bones under her feet with every step she takes. It’s good. She’s Cassie, the killer with a conscience, the murderer who never forgets a face, and she deserves to remember how it felt. 

She gets a shovel and digs a hole big enough for a sparrow and gently places the body in the ground. She begins to cry again when she covers it back up with dirt, but that’s good too. It’s good that she’s crying. That’s what Tobias said.

Dropping the shovel, she looks back up at the sky as she heads for the house, and prays this is the last broken thing she will have to bury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and for your kind words! It means a lot to me. If there's one thing I love, it's talking about Animorphs, so please feel free to leave a comment below so we can discuss! <3


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